The Artist Currently Known As Prince Is Suing 22 Accused Bootleggers For $1M Each

Recording artist Prince wants some of his fans to give him $22 million. Emphasis on the “some” — just the 22 people his piracy lawsuit accuses of bootlegging his live performances and publishing them on the Internet.

The singer, real name Prince Rogers Nelson, filed the lawsuit on Jan. 16 in the Northern District of California, alleging that 22 people have engaged “in massive infringement and bootlegging of Prince’s material,” reports the New York Daily News.

He only names two defendants by their real names, while the others go by “Doe” or are indicated by their online monikers or websites. Many of those involve plays on Prince’s name or songs, suggesting that much of the content is from die-hard Prince fans.

“Defendants rely on either Google’s Blogger platform or Facebook, or both, to accomplish their unlawful activity,” the lawsuit claims. “Rather than publishing lawful content to their blogs, they typically publish posts that list all the songs performed at a certain Prince live show and then provide a link to a file sharing service where unauthorized copies of the performance can be downloaded.”

Prince’s camp says that one of the defendants is responsible for 363 links to illegal content alone, which will “continue to cause substantial, immediate and irreparable injury.”

“Prince has suffered and is continuing to suffer damages in an amount according to proof, but no less than $1 million per Defendant,” the suit adds.

This isn’t unsurprising from Prince, as his fans may already know — he often issues takedown notices for fan-uploaded videos of his concerts on YouTube and elsewhere.